May 2003
Volume 16, Number 5
Jennifer K. Robbennolt is an associate professor of law and senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution at the University of Missouri School of Law. She earned a JD and a PhD in social psychology from the University Nebraska-Lincoln and served as a law clerk for the Nebraska Supreme Court. Before joining the University of Missouri, she was a research associate and lecturer at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and department of psychology.
My interest in the intersection of psychology and law began when I took an undergraduate course in psychology and law at Willamette University. My interest was piqued, and I pursued a law degree and a PhD in social psychology simultaneously in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's law/psychology program. After graduate school I spent some time clerking for a state Supreme Court judge, and a post-doctoral research appointment in public affairs and psychology, I joined the faculty of the University of Missouri School of Law as an associate professor of law and senior fellow in the Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution. In this role I have many opportunities to apply the theories and methods of psychology to interesting and motivating legal questions.
As a psychological scientist working on research topics that involve both psychological and legal questions, I have had the opportunity to explore areas as diverse as how citizens and judges determine punitive damages and the implications of these findings for tort reform. I have also explored the role of empirical research in informing the law of intestacy, the role of the media in influencing the public's perceptions of the legal system as well as the decisions of various players in the system, and the role of apologies in the resolution of disputes.
The academic environment of a law school is both similar to and different from that of a department of psychology. Psychological scientists within departments of psychology may have primary interests in diverse areas of psychology (ranging from cognitive to social to developmental to neurological and so on). They have in common, however, both a shared interest in the study of psychology and a shared commitment to the use of scientific methodologies to explore their questions of interest. Similarly, my colleagues in the law school have primary interests in diverse areas of the law (ranging from constitutional law to the law of property or contracts, to criminal law and other areas). The common thread that ties us together is not the use of scientific methodology to approach our questions (though interest in empirical research is growing in legal academia), but rather a common interest in understanding, commenting on, and improving the law.
That there are fewer empirical researchers in a law school than in a psychology department is both the biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity. There are fewer natural opportunities for detailed discussion of methodology or statistics. For such discussions, I often look to colleagues in other departments or at other institutions. But there is a wealth of practical experience that grounds one's research and stimulates one's ideas about areas of the law that are ripe for the insights of psychology. Moreover, the opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration and exchange abound. Legal scholars with backgrounds in other fields such as sociology, journalism, and political science are very interested in the insights that psychology and empirical research methods might bring to a broad array of topics. There are exciting possibilities for bringing psychology to areas of the law that are not my own substantive expertise (and that have been less frequently examined by psychological scientists).
My interaction with students is somewhat different as well. I am less likely to work directly with graduate students in psychology, though I do sit on thesis committees in psychology, as well as in other departments such as agricultural economics. Instead, being on the faculty at a law school provides me with the opportunity to introduce psychological science to large groups of future attorneys. I am able to introduce them to psychological theories in a variety of substantive legal classes. Even more often, I am able to challenge their thinking and introduce them to scientific ways of conceptualizing and analyzing problems. In addition, I teach empirical research methods to a smaller group of LLM students-attorneys who have returned to school for special training in dispute resolution.
While my identity as a psychologist is relatively salient to my colleagues here, it takes some effort to retain one's identity as a psychologist when one's academic home is a law school. A desire to maintain a connection to psychology has implications for decisions about how to frame research questions, where to publish the results, and how to keep current with developments in psychology as well as law. While the challenges are plentiful, the opportunities presented make facing them worthwhile.
